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Film Studios May Stop Running Facebook Promos

Today’s Academy Awards nominations mark Hollywood’s second-biggest PR day (this year’s theme seems to be “Thank you, Steven Spielberg, for keeping things classy”). But the movie industry may be re-thinking some of its promotional strategies in coming years–especially those involving Facebook.

In short, some studio executives and their press teams have begun to wonder whether “likes” amount to box office returns. It would seem that the two parties’ revenue streams have crossed–and anyone who’s seen Ghostbusters knows what that means.

It’s all about Facebook’s new algorithm. While the site once served as a free marketing platform for studios, promo posts now bring limited returns unless they’re “sponsored stories”–which means more money, of course. You want “reach” and “engagement”? Get ready to pay up. Some studios are “finding new ways to…interact” with audiences by “bringing in their own writers” to “help create more engaging campaigns”. Sounds like more work for PR teams, doesn’t it?

Should media folks in La-La Land cut their Facebook budgets and stop counting on the social network to drive ticket sales? It makes sense to us, because we’ve never “liked” a movie that we haven’t seen. But we wonder how studios can replace this free platform.

Oh, and while we’re at it, here are a few other things Hollywood could do with a little less of: